Colin Leak wins the 2012 Bergen 5 km with a time of 14:33.Colin Leak of Syracuse and Maegan Krifchin of Dewitt, New York, were the winners of the 2012 Bergen 5 km/Jenny Kuzma Memorial Race. Leak finished with a time of 14:33 and Krifchin with a time of 16:43.
Race director Eric Boyce says Krifchin won back-to-back titles. Her time last year of 16:29 is the course record. “Krifchin earlier in the year finished second at the USA half Marathon Championships. She was beaten only by Olympian marathoner Kara Goucher.”
Boyce says Leak and Peter Kosgei pulled away from a group of five male runners with 1 km to go. “Leak got ahead of Kosgei in the last 400 meters to win the race. Kosgei ran 14:36. The top 50 times were 16:42 or faster.”
The race was the fastest in Western New York, Boyce says and 2012 saw the largest turnout with 420 people registering and 383 finishers. Last year 260 finished the race.
“The Bergen 5 km also hosted the USATF Niagara 5 km Championships,” Boyce says. “Leak and Krifchin won the open titles. Checkers AC won the women’s open team title and Stotan Racing won the men’s team team title. A notable performance was 55-year-old Charlie Andrews of Rochester, who ran 16:45.”
“I was very pleased with the race,” Boyce says. “We had our largest turnout and our most competitive field. It was great to see runners of all levels out at the race. It was great to see so much community involvement. I took the race over six years ago and I wanted to make it more of a competitive race that gets some fast runners. I think six years ago if I had told people that I wanted to have a race in Bergen with about 400 runners and have it be like this, I think people would have laughed at me. This race was so successful because the sponsors and volunteers work very hard. This is a great way to honor Jenny Kuzma. The Kuzma family is very pleased.”
